


and i'll let it go (and hope it comes back one day)

by itsagamefortwo



Series: five times something goes wrong and one time it goes right (jatp) [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: (beause yknow they're ghosts. and also her mum), (this does have a happy ending, 5+1 Things, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Swearing, i don't make the rules i'ts just a fact, julie could save the world with love, nothing ambiguious about it at all)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27215545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsagamefortwo/pseuds/itsagamefortwo
Summary: Julie keeps losing things and people, but sometimes she gets to keep them.aka 5 times julie loses something +1 time she gets to keep something.‘Julie supposes she should be good at losing things and people by now. She’s learnt to deal with it via a fish and plants and friends. She’d just never thought the thing she’d be losing would be her mom.’
Relationships: (tis all about the friendships my humans), Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Carlos Molina & Julie Molina, Flynn & Julie Molina, Julie Molina & Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina & Julie Molina's Mother, Julie Molina & Ray Molina
Series: five times something goes wrong and one time it goes right (jatp) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986928
Comments: 32
Kudos: 151





	and i'll let it go (and hope it comes back one day)

**_one._ **

When she was six Julie had made a very detailed presentation - including glitter and  _ coloured  _ print outs, courtesy of Carrie’s printer - on why she should be allowed to get a pet fish. There had been charts and graphs - because she’d seen someone on tv using charts and graphs and getting what they wanted so obviously it was the way to go - and little hands outs in the form of flyers and posters she’d found in the school library. 

She’d stood in front of her parents in the living room, Carrie holding up the bar graph, Flynn supporting the pie chart, and she had made her case. She had promised to feed them, to help clean out the tank and filter. She’d pointed out how having a fish didn’t need  _ walking  _ and that they were  _ quiet  _ and there was never really any mess to clean up. A fish would be the perfect pet. 

A week later on a sunny Saturday morning, the three Molina’s walked into a pet store. Julie had done a lot of thinking in the last week about what kind of fish she wanted. Carrie, Flynn and herself had spent a painstaking afternoon looking through photos on google until they found the perfect fish. 

So she almost didn’t notice the tank in the back corner of the store that looked a little dark and dingy, with two fish swimming aimlessly around the decoration-less tank. There wasn’t anything particularly special or different about these fish, they looked like every other goldfish she’d ever seen. Yellow-gold scales, large eyes, fins that always reminded her of wings, one of them seemed to be turning almost white while the other had little spots of black mixing with the gold. 

Julie tilted her head as she peered into the tank, blowing a stray curl out of her face as she furrowed her brow. She couldn’t say why, but these fish just seemed so very  _ sad _ to her. 

“They’re sad,” she said out loud, looking over at her parents where they were standing talking to a shop assistant about different types of tanks. “Why are they by themselves?”

“Those two are returns. Kid didn’t want them anymore so they bought them back,” the man said, already sounding bored of the conversation. But the frown on Julie's face deepened as she looked back at the fish. No wonder they were sad. Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, Julie looked around at all the other fish tanks around her, at all the bright  _ happy _ fish swimming around and made up her mind. 

“Can we get these two please?” She pointed at the tank in front of her, careful not to touch the glass because she didn’t want to scare them. That would be a terrible first introduction. 

“I thought you wanted one of the ones with orange and black splotches?” Her mom said coming to stand next to her, because that’s all she’d been talking about on the drive over. About the fish that she’d wanted. Julie nodded her head quickly and then shook it once, hair flying in front of her face again that her mom gently moved away. 

“I did! But these two are sad and no one wants them which isn’t fair. They didn’t do anything wrong. But I want them. And I’ll look after them and love them and they can be happy! Please momma, these ones?” Julie watched as her parents exchanged a look, eyebrows raising and lips twitching. She didn’t know what any of it meant, but her dad said something about needing a tank big enough for two and forty-five minutes later they were leaving the shop with a tank and two sad looking fish. 

Julie had been so engrossed in looking at her new fish, naming them and telling them all about their new home and how they were going to be able to see the TV so  _ clearly  _ from their spot in the living room that she didn’t hear the shop assistants comment about how they probably only had a few months left to live. 

Two years later as Juile went about her usual Saturday morning routine of breakfast and cartoons and pretending to help her mom with the crossword she paused to say hello to her fish. Empty bowl in her hand and halfway to the kitchen when she looked into the tank and felt her heart drop. 

“Mom! Dad!”

Her parents both came rushing in from the kitchen at her distressed call, finding her staring into the glass tank she had taken hours to decorate with silent tears dripping down her face as the two fish floated listless at the top. 

“Oh sweetie,” her mom said, a hand resting on her chest and as she wrapped her other arm around her daughter's shoulders, pulling her close to her side. 

“They’re dead,” Julie said quietly, because she had done all her research two years ago about fish and how to look after them and what they liked. And how to tell if they were dead. 

“Yeah they are,” her mom gave her a gentle squeeze, turning her away from the tank and leading her to the sofa so they could sit down. “But you gave them the best two years with the way you looked after them. Decorating their home and making sure they got only the best food and keeping them company. They weren’t so sad anymore.” 

And Julie just nods her head, wiping tears away on her sleeves and swallowing when she feels more tears welling in her eyes. 

“Can we bury them?” 

“Of course we can mija. There's that old shoe box in the closet upstairs, why don’t you go get it and we can decorate it for them, huh? Put their names on it, make it look nice,” her dad, perched on the arm of the sofa said, running one hand over her hair as he smiled down at her. 

“Okay.”

They bury the two fish in a cardboard shoe box decorated with glitter and stickers in the back garden, next to a little flower bed near the studio garage and Julie cries again but it’s not so sad. Because she had given her fish the two best years she could and her mom is holding her hand while her dad has her hugged to his side. And maybe death isn’t so sad if they’ve lived a happy long life.

**_two._ **

The plant sat on her desk staring at her. 

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t  _ staring  _ at her, because it was a plant and, as far as Julie knew, plants couldn’t stare. But if they could this one would be. 

Actually it would probably be glaring at her. Using it’s last dregs of life to make sure it’s murderer knew what they had done and felt guilty about it. 

Julie hadn’t  _ meant  _ to kill the little plant. She’d just… forgotten it was sitting on her windowsill in her bedroom, in direct sight of the sun everyday for the last three months. Without getting watered once. 

She was eleven years old and a plant killer. 

Julie dropped her head into her hands and let out a groan, throwing herself backwards onto her bed so only her feet were dangling off the end. That’s how her mom finds her twenty minutes later. 

“Everything okay in here?” She asked, a laugh in her tone that just makes Julie groan again. 

“No!” She whines, not sitting up but at least moving her hands from in front of her face as her mom comes further into her room and sits on the edge of her bed. 

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” 

“I killed the plant,” Julie mutters, a pout on her lips as her eyebrows are drawn together and she glares at the ceiling. Just how she’d imagined the plant glaring at her. 

“Ah,” is all she gets in response which just makes Julie glare harder at her ceiling, even as she feels tears pooling in her eyes. 

“I’m a plant killer mom. Does that make me a bad person?” 

She can almost feel the shock coming from her mom as she looks down at her, eyes a little wide as the older woman shakes her head. And then her eyes soften and she’s pulling Julie up so they’re sitting side by side on the bed, looking at the plant she has murdered by default. 

“Oh Julie. Did you  _ mean  _ to kill the plant?” She asks and Julie immediately shakes her head, hair flying everywhere and eyes widening in horror at the thought. 

“No! Of course I didn’t! I swear!” 

“Well there you go then. You just made a mistake my love, everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes they can lead things like a plant dying,” her mom gestures in front of them with one hand while the other brushes tears off her cheeks. “Sometimes they can lead to bad things happening to someone else. But it’s what you do in response to your mistake that really matters. You’re not a bad person Julie, I don’t even think you’d know  _ how _ to be a bad person.” 

Julie sniffed, eyes locked on the plant as she thought over her mom's words and what they meant and what she could do with them. 

“Can we get a new plant? And maybe– maybe keep it in the studio so I’ll remember to water it when I go practice?” She turned her eyes up to her mom and was greeted with a wide smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. 

“That sounds like a great plan!” 

**_three._ **

Sometimes you make friends when you’re a little kid and just assume they’re always going to be in your life. Because when you’re a little kid and when you say someone is your best friend, you mean it, whole heartedly and without a single doubt in your mind. 

For as long as Julie can remember it had always been the two of them. 

Julie and Carrie. 

Carrie and Julie. 

Best friends  **_forever_ ** .

She knew they had met because their parents knew each other, that they’d always gone to the same schools, the same parks. She knew that when Carrie’s mom had left her dad spent three weeks drinking and shouting and playing music too loud, that Carrie had spent the majority of those three weeks at her house. She knew that whenever she learnt a new song that Carrie would have a dance routine worked out within hours. 

Julie  _ knew _ that no matter what went right or wrong in her life, Carrie would be there to have her back.

Because they were best friends. 

Nothing had ever really changed in their friendship, not even when they’d met Flynn on the first day of first grade and immediately decided their duo was now a trio. Because they were kids, and when kids declared they were best friends, they meant it. 

At least Julie had meant it. 

Now, curled up under the covers on her bed, tear tracks on her face and a headache forming behind her eyes, she starts to wonder if Carrie had ever meant it. She starts to reevaluate their entire friendship, her entire childhood. There’s very few memories of the last fourteen years of her life that don’t involve Carrie in some way. 

That thought just makes a fresh wave of tears fill her eyes and dampen her pillow. 

The words are still echoing in her head. The tone she had used, the hand on her hip, the tossing of her hair, the look of  _ disgust  _ on her face. Julie had seen it all before, she’d just never seen if directed  _ at her _ or Flynn. 

“ _ Don’t you get it?  _ **We** _ are not friends anymore. I don’t hang out with pathetic losers like you. _ ” 

Around and around in her head the words bounced. Julie doesn’t know what changed from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, doesn’t know what she did or didn’t do, doesn’t know how she’s meant to react other than crying. 

Which is apparently one of the many,  _ many _ , things that make her a pathetic loser. 

Along with being childish and unfashionable and boring and not the right type of person for Dirty Candi – a group that Julie had helped her form, encouraged her to start, helped brainstorm a name for and decide on who would wear which colour. A band, that no Julie thought about it, she had never been asked to join. Not once during the whole process did it ever come up. 

Julie had never even seen the distance growing between them. Hadn’t noticed when Carrie decided on who she wanted to be, and who that person was didn’t need someone like Julie around. 

Twenty minutes later, with Julie still hiding under her duvet and some playlist of sad songs playing on youtube, Flynn comes through the door. Dropping her bag next to the bed and joining her under the covers. Julie turns to face her, closing out of the app so they’re left in silence. Flynn’s been crying too, she notes, because Carrie had ended her friendship with both of them. Said mean and hurtful things about both of them. 

“Carrie’s a bitch,” Flynn mutters her eyes on the ceiling but there’s no real heat in her words. They’re both too in shock and sadness right now, Julie realises. Do you have to go through the five stages of grief even if the person you lost hasn’t died? She’s never thought about that before.

“Yeah, she is,” Julie agrees. Because it’s true. Carrie has always been a little bit of a bitch, she’s just never directed it at them. In fact she’d never actually been so outright mean to anyone and in the back of her mind, Julie wonders what happened in the forty eight hours that they didn’t see her. 

They’ll probably never find out the answer to that question. It’s just a fact of life that Julie is going to have to come to terms with, she supposes. Her and Carrie had been best friends once. They weren’t anymore.

Her mom finds them twenty minutes later still tucked under the duvet and concocting plans on how they can possibly egg Carries house without being caught. She leans against the doorframe, her cheek pressing to the wood as she crosses her arms over her chest and smiles at them both. 

“How about I make us some hot chocolate and we come up with a plan that doesn’t involve you two doing anything illegal, huh?” And who are they to say no to hot chocolate when they’re sad?

**_four._ **

Music had never been about being the best or winning or even competitions to Julie. It had always been about the emotions, the lyrics, the actual  _ music.  _ That’s not to say she didn’t like it when she won though. Because she did. She very much liked it when a group of strangers gathered together and decided she was the best of the bunch. 

So it also hurt when she  _ didn’t  _ win. Even if the loss was deserved. She’d messed up the intro to the song, had forgotten some of the lyrics half way through, had even been a little out of tune at the beginning she knew.

So she knew she wasn’t going to win. But it still sucked. It especially sucked when Carrie strolled past, tossing her hair over her shoulder and glancing in her direction before saying something that made her friends laugh long and loud. Julie felt her face flushing, tucked a stray curl behind her ear before pulling it back free and trying to hide her face behind it. 

It wasn’t that losing in a silly school music competition was really a big deal. It was just one really bad performance that just happened to be a little more important than any of her previous ones. It didn’t count for a grade, it wouldn’t go on her report card or in her file. It was something she’d signed up for for fun. For a laugh. 

She just happened to be the one people were laughing  _ at _ . Which just, it really sucked. There was no other way to describe it. 

She said as much later when she sat on the sofa and Carlos wandered into the room, a box of cereal tucked under one arm with a handful of the stuff in the other, and asked what was wrong. He stands in silence for a few seconds, stuff the cereal into his mouth before coming to some kind of conclusion and sitting next to her on the sofa, offering her some of his cereal. It’s enough to jerk a surprised laugh out of Julie as she accepts the offer.

“You’re way better than all those people at your school. I should know, I have to listen to you sing  _ all  _ the time,” he says it so matter of factly. And even though he’s nine year old and hasn’t heard anyone else from her school perform (other than Carrie and Flynn, but he dislikes Carrie on  _ principle _ and knows that Flynn didn’t perform) Julie finds herself believing him for a moment. 

She leans back on the sofa, pulling Carlos down with her with one arm around his shoulders until they’re sprawled together, box of cereal between them. 

“You’re a good brother,” she mutters, tries to make it sound like a rare admittance to the fact, even if Julie often thinks it. 

“In that case will you watch Ben10 with me? There’s new episodes out.” He grins at her, big and toothy because he knows that she doesn’t like the animation of the new Ben10 but that she’s never quite been able to say no to him when he asks. 

So Julie huffs out a sigh, disentangles her arms from around his shoulders to reach for the remote and flips through the channels until she finds the right one then settles back down next to him. 

They share the box of cereal, sheepish smiles on their faces when their mom comes through half an hour later and finds them covered in crumbs and giggling at the screen. She just shakes her head at them, but there’s a fond sort of smile on her lips that Julie knows means she’s more amused then annoyed. 

As they all sit around the dinner table later that evening, Julie arguing with Carlos about how much  _ better  _ the original Ben10 was and her dad nodding along as if he knows what they’re talking about and her mom humming some new song she’s been working on under her breath, she forgets all about losing some silly little music competition.

**_five._ **

Julie had never really thought about it before – mostly because she’d never had to spend much time in one – but hospitals were strange places. 

They were a bit like airports she decided. Places where time lost all sense of reality. It must have something to do with the lights, she thinks, how they’re never turned off. You could walk into one at two in the afternoon (lights bright) and leave at three in the morning (the lights still bright) without even realising it had been more than an hour. 

The difference was, she supposed, that if you were in an airport you were probably going somewhere nice and fun. You might even get a fun meal and a new book. There’d be people crowded at the windows to wave at planes as they left. An airport was a strange place but it had an underlying feeling of fun and excitement about it. 

Hospitals just screamed dread and worry. And, if she could go her whole life without ever stepping foot in another hospital Julie would. 

She finds herself thinking the same thing about the studio garage as she stands outside it. One door is open and she can see half the piano, papers sitting on the top and the plants she had helped pick out waiting to be watered. 

That’s why she’s stood there, she needs to go in and water the plants. But she just can’t make herself take the next step, the one that will have her crossing the door and being inside. Julie doesn’t think she’s ever been inside the studio without her mom. Or without knowing that her mom would be joining her inside in a few minutes. 

Julie doesn’t know how long she stands there for, one hand gripping the door handle tightly while the other shakes at her hand, fingers trying to find purchase in the soft material of her black skirt. 

She needs to water the plants, it’s the only thing in her mind.

She needs to water the plants because she had promised her mom she’d water them when they’d gone to the store to pick them out even though they’d split it between them.

She needs to water the plants because it’s been a week and they’ll start to die soon and Julie doesn’t want to be a plant murder again. 

She needs to water the plants because her mom is dead and it's her job now.

Flynn finds her still standing there, staring at the piano and the plants and the quite empty room. Dimly, Julie notices the black dress her friend is wearing, the muted accessories and the concern in her eyes. 

“Hey,” she says. And it’s quiet, careful in a way that Flynn is rarely quiet and careful when she speaks. 

“I need to water the plants.” Is all Julie can say, unable to draw her eyes away from where they are in the garage. 

Because she needs to water the plants but she can’t make herself step foot in the garage because her mom is dead and it’s the funeral in an hour but she needs to water the plants because there’s no one else who knows where the watering can is or which ones need spraying instead but she can’t move because her mom is  _ dead _ and the studio is quite and the plants are dying and her mom is dead.

“Okay. Okay, how about you tell me what to do and I’ll water them, yeah?” Flynn is holding her hand, the one she’d had gripped painfully tight to the door handle. Julie doesn’t even know when she took it. She’s not sure if she nods or makes some kind of sound, all she knows is that Flynn is squeezing her hand quickly and then she’s in the studio garage and following the instructions Julie forces past her lips. 

When she’s done Flynn helps her close the door, lock it up and leads her back into the house. There’s family and friends already milling about. Offering condolences and deepest regrets and offering empty help. Julie can see her dad and  _ Tia  _ Victoria talking to a large group of people. Can see them keeping it together.

She can see Carlos sitting at the dining room table with an untouched mug of something in front of him and watches as Carrie sits down next to him. Watches as she says something that makes him smile just a little, because Carrie had always been able to make Carlos smile, even when he was mad or upset at them all. They used to joke it was her super power. 

Julie didn’t even know Carrie was coming today. Doesn’t know how she’s meant to feel about it either.

As if sensing them looking Carrie looks up, makes eye contact and gives her a small smile, a tilt of her head. There’s something in her eyes that Julie can’t decipher. Doesn’t have the energy to try to. Flynn squeezes her hand once even as Julie nods back at Carrie. They haven’t been friends in a long time, but they used to be best friends and Carrie had once been like family. 

She supposes it makes sense that Carrie is here. That she is sitting next to Carlos and talking to him quietly. That she can see Mr Wilson talking to her dad. It’s been a long time since either of them were in this house and Julie wishes that they weren’t here because of this. 

Julie supposes she should be good at losing things and people by now. She’s learnt to deal with it via a fish and plants and friends. She’d just never thought the thing she’d be losing would be her mom. That she would have to find a way through all this  _ hurt  _ without her mom by her side. Because she had always been by her side through every other loss. 

She cries quietly, stood in the kitchen with Flynn holding her hand tightly and people passing by them with sad looks on their faces and concern in their eyes. 

She cries quietly as she thinks about how cruel and awful the world is for taking away one of the people she loves most. 

She cries quietly as she wonders how the hell she is supposed to get through it all.

**_+one._ **

They’re not sure when it happens or what's changed or what they did. One day they just wake up and things are different.

Or, not _different_ per say, but more how they used to be BHD – before the hot dogs. Which is what the boys insist on calling their stint as ghosts no matter how many times Julie vetoes it. And she’s vetoed it _a_ _lot_.

Really, the first sign that something had happened should have been the fact Julie walked in on them piled on top of each other on the sofa in the living room, passed out asleep. They were ghosts. Ghosts weren’t meant to sleep. But she brushes it aside, thinks maybe it's more of a reflex thing. 

It isn’t until three hours later as she hugs Reggie in celebration of a particularly good shot with the basketball outside that Julie notices the thing that’s  _ different _ . 

She can feel his heart beating in his chest. A steady thumping where there hadn’t been before. 

“Reggie…” she starts, eye wide as she looks from his chest to his face, trying to see if he’s noticed. If he  _ knows  _ that his heart is beating blood around his body. But he just looks at her confused, his eyebrows drawing together and his lips quirking to the side like they do when he thinks he’s in trouble. 

“I swear I didn’t cheat. I’m just that good!” He holds his hands up in defense, but Julie reaches out to grab his left wrist and cradles it in one hand while she presses two fingers along the inside, trying to find his pulse point like she’s seen doctors do (she blinks back the memories of the last time she saw a doctor press their fingers to someones wrist, searching for something that wasn’t there and the small shake of their head) and letting out a small gasp when she finds it. 

“Er what’s going on over here?” Luke asks curiously as he eyes the way Julie is holding Reggies wrist and the growing realisation on Reggie’s face. 

Julie doesn’t answer him, just reaches out to grab hold of Luke’s wrist and proceeds to do the same thing. Fingertips pressing into the soft skin on his wrist, and for the first time Julie sees the light blue tell-tale sign of blood flowing through veins under his skin. 

And then she feels it, the faint pulsating. 

She lets out a choked sob, letting her hand that was holding his wrist steady fly up cover her mouth even as the other stays in place, almost scared that if she moves her fingers the pulse will vanish and with it this strange miracle she thinks they’ve been given. 

“Holy shit,” she hears Luke whispers above her and she looks up to see him with his free hand resting over his heart, eyes widening with each beat they can both feel. 

She doesn’t have any words to say in response.  _ Holy shit  _ seems to be a pretty accurate reaction. Still holding on to Lukes wrist, Julie turns around to see Alex and Reggie each holding the other's wrist like some strange handshake. Unconsciously they all seem to move towards each other, in awkward small steps as no one is prepared to let go of the other until they stand in a loose circle and Julie can press her fingers into Alex’s free wrist and feel his pulse too. 

Three pulses where there hadn't been one before. She lets out a half laugh, half sob.

“Is this real?” Alex asks, his eyes wide with unshed tears, as if he’s holding himself back. And Julie remembers when they all first met and how he’d said he never dealt well with change and how death was a  _ big  _ change and how now.  **Now** they might be going through a bigger one. She lets her fingers slip down from his wrist so she’s holding his hand and squeezes it tightly. 

“I think so.” 

There has never been any answers for their situation. For being ghosts. For being seen by Julie or seen when they play. Definitely no answers for why they could suddenly be touched or seen by others. (Though secretly, in the dark of her room in the dead of night Julie had wondered if it was  _ love  _ that had done it all. Her love for them, her mom's love for her.) 

The last two years had just been them guessing at every turn and getting lucky each time. They had written their own ghostly rule book, and getting a heartbeat again would just have to be the newest chapter. 

“We’ll just have to figure it out, like we’ve figured everything else out,” Julie says, squeezing Alex’s hand and Luke’s wrist and smiling wide at Reggie. A few moments of silence pass between them, the boys still feeling their hearts beating, counting each one before it’s broken by a startled gasp and they all look to Luke.

“Hey! Do you think this means we can eat now?” Luke asks, his eyebrows shooting up at the thought. No doubt already planning what he wants from the kitchen. 

“Only one way to find out man,” Reggie shrugs but his smile is wide and Julie knows not being able to eat has been one of the biggest disappointments of their afterlife for all three of them. 

That’s how her dad and Carlos find them half an hour later, gathered around the island in the kitchen with sandwich ingredients scattered around all available surfaces. And three not-so-ghosts eating their creations as Julie looks on with a wide smile. 

“Um–” is all dad gets out, a hand half up in the air as he points at them with confusion. Her dad has been pretty understanding about the whole ‘ _ my band is made up of three teenage ghosts, oh, and by the way they kinda live in our garage _ ’ thing, but she can’t blame him for being confused by this scene. Ghosts aren’t supposed to be able to eat after all. 

“Woah what did we miss!?” Carlos, ever the enthusiast for all things ghost related, is already running across the kitchen, pulling out the chair next to Julie’s and kneeling next to her, eyes darting between the three older boys as he leans on the contertop to be even closer. “Are they eating? How are they eating?” 

Julie shrugs one shoulder, turning her eyes to Carlos and her dad, who’s moved from the doorway to stand at the end of the island, watching all of them. 

“We’re not sure but–” Julie starts only to be cut off by Reggie who drops his sandwich back to his plate and stretches out his arms, one to her dad and one to Carlos with possibly the widest smile Julie has ever seen on him. 

“Check this out. Go on, feel y’know, with your middle and forefinger. Right there, yeah.”  The four of them watch as her dad and Carlos do as instructed, fingers resting over the pulse points on Reggie’s wrists. Her dad finds it first, and Julie can pinpoint the exact moment he must feel the thrumming of a heartbeat because his eyes widen a fraction even as they fill with tears she hadn’t been expecting. 

Which is silly, if she really thinks about it, because the boys have found a way into all their lives and hearts so seamlessly. 

Because Reggie spends time with her dad helping out around the kitchen or while he fiddles with his camera and jokes around with Carlos and talks with him late at night when he’s supposed to be sleeping. 

Because Alex watches all the terrible telenovela’s with him that her and Carlos hate and asks questions about all the movies they’ve missed, and he spends time helping Carlos with his history homework and practices his ball throwing when their dad is busy.

Because Luke listens to him talk about composition and lighting and perspective with real interest and takes his music suggestions seriously and has been teaching Carlos to play guitar when they think no one is around. 

They’ve filled a gap in their family that they hadn’t even realised was there.

It wasn’t like their home was lacking in love and laughter and light, it had just been dimmed down. It was like they’d shut all their curtains after her mom had died, and were making do with a cheap light bulb and rare rays of sunlight that peaked through and lit up their life in tiny bursts.

But then along came three dead teenagers and without them noticing, without Julie even realising, they’d opened up the curtains again. Let all the light stream back in and never asked for anything in return other than being allowed to stick around.

So maybe this was their reward. 

As her dad and Carlos worked their way through feeling the pulse on each of the boys, pulling them into hugs and sharing in their excitement, Julie let herself smile, tears trailing down her cheeks as she felt her own heartbeat with one hand over her chest.

She didn’t know if this was her mom’s doing or her own or if they’d just accidentally done it themselves with sheer will power. 

All Julie knew was that her boys were here, were breathing and eating, had hearts beating in their chests, and were being given their second chance at life. 

All Julie really knew was that she loved them, had hoped for a way to  _ keep  _ them, had proud every bit of love and hope into each hug they’d ever shared. 

All Julie knew was that she wished she could thank  _ who _ ever or  _ what _ ever it was that was answering her pleaded request and allowing her to keep them. 

She doesn’t notice them moving, too busy thinking and sending thanks into the world, but all of a sudden there are three pairs of arms wrapping themselves around her in an uncomfortable and awkward hug. But she doesn’t care. She just grabs onto whoevers arm she can, lets out a small laugh of joy and holds them tight. Never intending on letting them go.

**Author's Note:**

> um. i was thinking about all the plants that they have in the studio right? and how julie must be the one who waters them and then this happened? look. i don't know how my brain works either okay.  
> (sidenote. i had to go back through and change every time i put 'mom' because my fingers just automatically put 'mum' cos england and it was tiring. but i think i got them all.)
> 
> ANYWAY i think i'm gonna make a lil series out of this whole 5+1 thing. because ive got an idea for a carrie one.  
> but if anyone has any ideas for alex, reggie or flynn shoot me a message on here or tumblr?? because im drawing a blank for them. 
> 
> hope this was at least a little happier then my last one, but if not lemme just say. my bad.
> 
> anyway!!!  
> i hope you're all staying safe in these hard times.  
> hope you enjoyed! comments and kudos are appreciated!! mwah xox  
> you can also find me on [tumblr](https://tangledstarlight.tumblr.com/)!


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